We examine the impact of measurement errors in geocoding of property locations and in the assessment of Mountain Pine Beetle-induced tree damage within the proximity of a given residence on estimated losses in home values. For our sample of homes in the wildland-urban interface of the Colorado front range and using a novel matching estimator with Bayesian regression...

In this paper, we use operational data collected for large wildland fires to estimate the parameters of economic production functions that relate the rate of fireline construction with the level of fire suppression inputs (handcrews, dozers, engines and helicopters). These parameter estimates are then used to evaluate whether the productivity of fire suppression inputs...

There has been an explosion of interest during the past two decades in a class of nonmarket stated-preference valuation methods known as choice experiments. The overall objective of a choice experiment is to estimate economic values for characteristics (or attributes) of an environmental good that is the subject of policy analysis, where...

This paper examines heterogeneity in the preferences for OHV recreation by applying the random parameters Poisson model to a data set of off-highway vehicle (OHV) users at four National Forest sites in North Carolina. The analysis develops estimates of individual consumer surplus and finds that estimates are systematically affected by the random parameter specification...

MCFire is a computer program that simulates the occurrence and effects of wildfire on natural vegetation, as a submodel within the MC1 dynamic global vegetation model. This report is a technical description of the algorithms and parameter values used in MCFire, intended to encapsulate its design and features a higher level that is more conceptual than the level...

One of the challenges facing many applications of non-market valuations is to find data with enough variation in the variable(s) of interest to estimate econometrically their effects on the quantity demanded. A solution to this problem was the introduction of stated preference surveys. These surveys can introduce variation into variables where there is no natural...

We present a conceptual model of the economic impacts of hurricanes on timber producers and consumers, offer a framework indicating how welfare impacts can be estimated using econometric estimates of timber price dynamics, and illustrate the advantages of using a welfare theoretic model, which includes (1) welfare estimates that are consistent with neo-classical...

The hemlock woolly adelgid is an invasive insect that is damaging hemlock forests in the eastern United States. Several control methods are available but forest managers are constrained by cost, availability, and environmental concerns. As a result forest managers must decide how to allocate limited conservation resources over heterogeneous landscapes. We develop an...

Wilderness attracts tourists and generates visitor spending in proximate communities as people enjoy Wilderness for outdoor recreation. Wilderness also attracts amenity migrants and out-of-region investments into surrounding regional economies. To investigate the amount and types of employment and income generated by Wilderness visitation, we conducted an economic...

Adelges tsugae (Hemlock Woolly Adelgid; HWA) is a non-native forest insect that causes defoliation and mortality of hemlock in the eastern US. We quantified the extent to which people are potentially affected by the spread of HWA infestation where they live and where they recreate. We also considered how these impacts might change through time...

Southern forests provide a variety of critical ecosystem services, from purification of water and air to recreational opportunities for millions of people. Because many of these services are public goods with no observable market value, they are not fully accounted for in land use and policy decisions. There have been several efforts to remedy this by...

This paper provides an overview of the timber economic impacts of the southern pine beetle (SPB). Although we anticipate that SPB outbreaks cause substantial economic losses to households that consume the nonmarket economic services provided by healthy forests, we have narrowly focused our attention here on changes in values to timber growers and wood-products...

Biological invasions by nonnative species are a by-product of economic activities, with the vast majority of nonnative species introduced by trade and transport of products and people. Although most introduced species are relatively innocuous, a few species ultimately cause irreversible economic and ecological impacts, such as the chestnut blight that functionally...

We analyze a set of simulations to assess the impact of climate change on global forests where MC2 dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) was run with climate simulations from the MIT Integrated Global System Model-Community Atmosphere Model (IGSM-CAM) modeling framework. The core study relies on an ensemble of climate simulations under two emissions scenarios: a...

Sudden oak death (caused by Phytophthora ramorum) is currently having a dramatic impact on the flow of ecosystem services provided by trees and forests in California. Timber species in California are not thought to be at risk of mortality from this pathogen and, consequently, economic impacts accrue to non-market values of trees such as aesthetics,...

Biological invasions of forests by non-indigenous organisms present a complex, persistent, and largely irreversible threat to forest ecosystems around the globe. Rigorous assessments of the economic impacts of introduced species, at a national scale, are needed to provide credible information to policy makers. It is proposed here that microeconomic models of damage due...

In the last decade, increases in fire activity and suppression expenditures have caused budgetary problems for federal land management agencies. Spatial forecasts of upcoming fire activity and costs have the potential to help reduce expenditures, and increase the efficiency of suppression efforts, by enabling them to focus resources where they have the greatest effect...